Good Food, Gluten Free

Chopping Veggies is Not Easy as Cake

by Aimee on February 24, 2012

For me, chopping veggies or meat or any “cooking” type activity is just not as relaxing as baking. I don’t have to concentrate so hard on keeping my fingers attached to my body when I’m baking, and that in itself makes it more my style.

So when I do end up chopping veggies, I try to get a few days worth of veggies done at once. Today I came home to this:

Not pictured are potatoes and onions as well as a freezer-full of cauliflower, peas, and corn. Taking advantage of the still wintry weather, I decided to prep for vegetable soup, enchiladas, and chili. Lola was pleased. Lola’s favorite time of the week is when I’m chopping veggies. She is a veg-head.

Here she is attempting to “dig” a few dropped carrots out of her water dish. I swear I didn’t put them there on purpose 🙂

There is no stopping her when it comes to food. She even used to shake the peaches out of our peach tree to eat them when they fell. Yeah. That tree is dead now.

For the Spicy Veggie Soup I chopped:

1 green bell pepper (I halved it between the chili veggies and the soup veggies)

6 celery stalks

1 potato

2 onions (1 for each the chili and soup)

Broccoli

Zucchini (Split between chili and soup)

6 oz. carrots

1/4 head of cabbage

2 jalapenos

Drop veggies into a giant pot.

Next, I raided my frozen veggie stash, because there is no better use for frozen veggies than for soup. Quick, easy, and fresh veggies are (in my opinion) better spent enjoyed individually.

Not only do I dislike chopping veggies, I also don’t like to be wasteful. However, I’m not a huge fan of broccoli stems – to eat or in soup. I am particular, not picky. 🙂 In order not to waste the broccoli I force feed it to Lola take the stems along with some carrots and celery and drop them into my food processor. The finely diced outcome usually goes into the chili pot to add some extra vitamins and thickness. I love zucchini in anything, so it is there under the processed veggies with some green jalapenos and bell pepper.

I also got a red bell pepper taken care of for the enchiladas. Thank goodness I’m done chopping until at least Sunday. A real weekend is one without chopping.

After all of that work on soup, I was hungry. I decided to take a shot at a new salad dressing recipe that was posted on Organically Mo on Monday. I tried her Spicy Avocado Dressing. (I guess I was in a spicy mood today…spicy veggie soup, enchiladas, chili, spicy avocado??) Well, let me tell you in case you haven’t experienced it for yourself. This stuff is worth making by the gallon. The batch made with one measly avocado didn’t even make it onto the bowl of spinach I had prepared. I guzzled the stuff down, loading as much as I could onto the tiniest strip of celery I could feasibly allow and still tell myself it was the “main” ingredient of my snack. Avocados beware: Once this recipe gets out, you’re all eaten up.

Okay, avocado rant aside, since chopping veggies isn’t quite like baking a cake…I figured I’d go work on a yellow cake mix* for the rest of the night. Have a great Friday evening all!

*If you need a good yellow cake mix, I’ll post one in the next couple of days. I’m super particular about what my desserts taste like, especially since I went 20 years having the real thing. I won’t post it unless it’s indiscernible from the gluten-ated version.

Share this:

Like this:

Related

One response to “Chopping Veggies is Not Easy as Cake”

I am SO glad you liked my avocado dressing! 🙂
I used to hate chopping vegetables until I invested in a good pair of kitchen knives…it made ALL the difference. Sometimes, I will just dump veggies into the food processor and pulse it a few times…laziness at its finest! 😉